


I warned you about the stairs, bro ....

by landofspaceandrainbows (cereus)



Series: Murderstuck Meta [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ableism, Disability, Dubious Consent, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Medical Experimentation, Medical Trauma, Meta, Physical Disability, Wheelchairs, assistive technology, murderstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereus/pseuds/landofspaceandrainbows
Summary: Or: “Murderstuck”, Assistive Technology, Non Con Healing, Blood, and Breath
Series: Murderstuck Meta [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068566
Kudos: 3
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	I warned you about the stairs, bro ....

Or: the first act of murderstuck

One of the many things that catches my eye is it talks about some parts of disability experiences that most things don’t. it’s not the only thing but it’s still interesting.

Because this talks about a bit heavier stuff than usual, tw for mentions of some torture, ableism, and non consensual healing.

So back to the general area around “Murderstuck”…..

one of the themes that winds through the troll’s “arc” and Act 5 (which culminates in Murderstuck) is Tavros’s various wheelchairs and assistive technology. (which a bigger post about is here) From a shit hospital wheelchair, as youd expect from a shit ableist place where you basically don’t have disabled people in public, through his flying rocket chair (which he made) and through his metal robotic legs. and minor variations on all these.

so he starts out with this wheelchair, 

[https://www.homestuck.com/story/2113](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.homestuck.com%2Fstory%2F2113&t=YTE2MGFlZmMyNzE0NDM1YWM0MjY4MmJlZGI0NDQyYTQzYjFiNDk5YyxrTkdCOHFsbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AwkFpyAvtoLfjAa5Mfw6lLA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fthelandoflittlecubesandtea.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F634177425637539840%2Ftavros-and-assistive-tech&m=0&ts=1604942477)  
  
standard hospital wheelchair, ugh

which, wheelchairs [really don’t have to be that way ](https://calvin-arium.tumblr.com/post/184341867538/its-here-the-guide-for-two-legged-people-who)??

it doesn’t even have brakes!!

but tbh that makes sense given that he’s in a society in which, to be rather blunt, most physically disabled people are killed by the time they become an adult. tbh, the reason he’s probably alive is because he’s a teenager in bumfuck nowhere. but there just isn’t a lot of reason to develop actually good wheelchairs in that sort of situation, it just isn’t that sort of society. :(

fortunately he will be entering the motherfuckin game soon!!

(too bad about the meteors ig, but outta that chair!! /jk )

With how things worked out, we don’t get to see him in a nice wheelchair. But we do get to see him go from this

to this

and eventually, he gets the robo legs

[https://www.homestuck.com/story/2119](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.homestuck.com%2Fstory%2F2119&t=NWNlZTIwOTJiODI5NzlhMTBmMmJmYjdlOGI3NzZiMWVmNGE3MzE0MixrTkdCOHFsbA%3D%3D&b=t%3AwkFpyAvtoLfjAa5Mfw6lLA&p=https%3A%2F%2Fthelandoflittlecubesandtea.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F634177425637539840%2Ftavros-and-assistive-tech&m=0&ts=1604942477)

Which, legs are yay iI guess?? ( a lot of non-disabled people irl basically say that any form of walking is exciting and superior compared to any form of wheelchair) except ….

Tbh, it seems to be implied that the stuff with the legs was done somewhat non consensually?

It’s sort of drawn out, and implied. As the story goes on, the more you realize that his legs were removed and the robo legs put on in his sleep and that he wasn’t asked first. Which is non consensual, dubiously consensual at best.

and looking at it - most of his most effective stuff he did in his rocket chair, he comes up with the idea to charm the creatures in his chair too. in his robo legs he can’t even operate them at first and spends a lot of time trying to learn how to go down the stairs. 

So wanting to fly is something he’s wanted to do for a long time. The chair, which he made himself, allows him to fly, but his robo legs only let him walk. Trading a fairly deep long - lasting wish for a shorter “sort of” one.... And he is the Page of Breath. [and rockets are heavily associated with the element of breath](https://bladekindeyewear.tumblr.com/post/36797950396/breath-blood-and-the-flow-of-reality)!

tl:dr - rockets in homestuck go up, up, up towards freedom and both of the best known Breath bound characters use them in some of their most powerful character moments.

(and stairs with the element of blood but i’ll get to that in a bit)

  
So legs are yay i guess?? except afterwards Tavros seems, a little off? ....

....

So after the gift of the robo legs, Tavros ends up getting in contact with Jade, and as many people have noticed, he really starts acting like a thief of blood - [aka inverted](https://bladekindeyewear.tumblr.com/post/32167602634/rose-the-witch).

In the conversations with Jade, he tries to “steal” jade’s affections and friendship, making bonds between them.... and he more harshly actually ends up “stealing" Jade’s blood relative, her grandpa from her by causing him to be killed…. and even vriska notices that he’s started to act like vriska - a thief.

and from what we’ve seen in the comic before, inversion is very often, set off by trauma. One of the biggest, almost archetypal inversions, [Rose Lalone flipping from her normal Seer of Light role to become the very active Witch of Void](https://bladekindeyewear.tumblr.com/post/32167602634/rose-the-witch), was preceeded by her seeing her mother’s murder. and another character that many consider to have inverted, Aradia Megido, to become the frog-surrounded and destructive Bard of Space, was preceeded by her being killed. This isn’t always true, see Jade Harley, but very often so.

and he reaches out to Jade, and seems to have a new “confidence” but many people have pointed out he’s having a lot of difficulties and it’s a bit of “fake confidence" in a way, and you get lines like these:

“ AT: oH YES, iT IS TRULY NICE,  
AT: i AM A NEW AND DIFFERENT GUY, mOSTLY,  
AT: bEING NOT PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED IS MOST CERTAINLY THE KEY TO HAVING HIGH SELF ESTEEM, “

which Jade points out as not being very like him and seeming like "the lady doth protest too much"

ok ….

(back to stairs as a symbol of blood)

And when not talking to Jade, Tavros ends up trying to walk down, and falling down, a lot of stairs. And while breath’s rockets take you up up up, the stairs mostly seem to be associated with going down in homestuck. And the two players associated with breath almost never take a stair in their life while they’re playing the game! (actually Tavros is completely prevented from using stairs for disability reasons :p) .... until now ....

Heck for some reason Equius even installed some thing called a “pelvic magentron” in the robo legs that attract and stick Tavros to the stairs??

And the stairs also feature in Dave’s beat downs by his older brother that make him feel trapped and bound.

So Tavros right now ends up echoing Dave earlier in the comic, falling down the stairs, both of them oppressed by Blood / by the people they’re bonded to, and who are supposed to be caring for them, in the name of making them stronger. Falling down the stairs again and again, each sharp tread edge opening a slash - like cut.   
  
“it keeps happening”  
  
( normally this is the kind of situatiion where you’d reach out to a Breath bound person for help, but he *is* the breath player. Irony. So he reaches out to the human beta kids through Jade who he already knows some, who are aliens outside the worldviews and bonds of his group and culture, and also lead by a breath player, John.

and he does seem to gain a bit of himself back, and more so after confronting Vriska, leading to his last silly but rather heroic and Tavros-like charge. )  
  
Tavros also has his dream self killed on the same day, so loses his ability to fly twice on the same day.

....

SO back to right before Murderstuck and when Kanaya and Equius (nonconsensually) cut off Tavros’s legs.

Murderstuck is about “[blood, blood everywhere](https://thelandoflittlecubesandtea.tumblr.com/post/634240390505119744/terezi-investigator-of-mind)” both literally and symbolically as the teenage trolls deal with the bonds and relationships between eachother, their ancestors, and society - as they struggle with and re-enact their ancestor’s paths.  
  
Tbh, I was thinking this over and trying to see the big picture, and just as Gamzee and Terezi act out their respective roles from old alternian society of a corrupt judge and corrupt cop, or Eridan acts out being a young noble alternately obsessed with his intellectual interests and genocide, Kanaya, in her role as a Jadeblood, if she weren’t now far away from her home empire and on a lab in a meteor, would be caring for the young, but also ensuring that disabled young would not make it into adult troll society. In fact her ancestor actually had to flee and go into hiding for helping and protecting disabled and mutant youngsters. (She's also shown some tendencies before in not following her friends's requests to not help: see her cleaning up Vriska's dice.) Now, the fact that she chose *this* route instead of straight up killing which is the usual way, says a hell of a lot about Kanaya and her character! <3 but there are definitely still echoes.  
  
This scene, of Tavros getting his legs cut off * looks * a lot like Murderstuck, gouts of blood, dim lighting, someone in the background “just watching”, just a pair of glasses in the dim.  
  
And Karkat, who has been spending his time on a whole planet covered in blood passed out on seeing this, and his first words to Kanya are “you’re crazy” although he later adds “in a good way”. I think that Karkat may be picking up on something here. He is very tuned into his team and their feelings.  
  
So it is entirely possible that this act of non consensual healing is the first unseen, unacknowleged act of Murderstuck  
  
So I’ve been wondering, why were Equius and or Kanaya effected? Who was effecting them? Gamzee? by chucklevoodoos? Gamzee wasn’t effected yet i think? but it’s hard to tell the exact timeline due to time shennanigans?  
  


also, who effected gamzee?  
  
And then I’ve also reaized, Kanaya was in contact with the Lil Cal doll that corrupted Gamzee the whole time, for months and years, and she has no protective sunglasses.  
  
O fuck, now i feel much more worried for Kanaya.

**Epilogue:**

This is also mirrored later in Aranea, first her dubiously consensual healing of Terezi, then her non con healing of Jake.

Kanaya is the sylph of space, Aranea is the sylph of light. a common pitfall for sylph players??

(non consensual healing aka medical abuse as the dark side of sylph players as non consensual murder is for the destructive classes like bard or prince ?? )


End file.
